(3) MUSICAL FORMS
Contrapuntal Forms
In making a detailed study of any particular form, reference should be made to the critical sections of the biographies of those masters who have done most towards its development. As has been seen in the historical section of this chapter, the Contrapuntal Forms (Vol. 7, p. 41) were the first to attain to a high standard of organization in the hands of such masters as Orlando Lasso (Vol. 16, p. 237) and Palestrina (Vol. 20, p. 627). The articles Mass (Vol. 17, p. 849), Motet (Vol. 18, p. 905), Madrigal (Vol. 17, p. 295), Canon (Vol. 5, p. 190), Chorale (Vol. 6, p. 269), cover the ground of early choral music. In tracing their development reference should be made to the articles on Bach, J. S. (Vol. 3, p. 127), Beethoven (Vol. 3, p. 649), Brahms (Vol. 4, p. 390). Oratorio (Vol. 20, p. 161) and Cantata (Vol. 5, p. 209) had their beginning in the work of the followers of Monteverde in the early 17th century, and their development may be traced in the work of Cavaliere (Vol. 5, p. 563), Carissimi (Vol. 5, p. 338), Purcell (Vol. 22, p. 658), Bach (Vol. 3, p. 127), Handel (Vol. 2, p. 912), Brahms (Vol. 4 p. 390), César Franck (Vol. 11, p. 3), and Sir C. Hubert Parry (Vol. 20, p. 865).
Suite and Sonata
In instrumental music, the Suite (Vol. 26, p. 51), of which Boccherini (Vol. 4, p. 105) was the last master, most nearly foreshadowed the Sonata (Sonata Forms, Vol. 25, p. 394), and together they tell the tale of the development of absolute music up to modern experiments in the more elastic Symphonic Poem (Vol. 26, p. 289) of which Liszt (Vol. 16, p. 780) was the first to see the possibilities. In addition to the articles Sonata and Sonata Forms the reader should carefully study that part of the article Beethoven beginning on page 647 of Vol. 3; also the article Harmony, Key Relationships (Vol. 13, p. 5) which contains analyses of several striking key systems, and further reference should also be made to the articles Variations (Vol. 27, p. 912), Symphony (Vol. 26, p. 290).
Programme Music
To the Romantic movement of the early part of the 19th century may be traced the attempt to escape from the apparent restrictions of the Sonata Form, and Schumann’s (Vol. 24, p. 384) many Fantasie-Stücke and Chopin’s lyrical compositions (Vol. 6, p. 268) are prototypes in little of the tendencies of the time. On a larger canvas are the Ton-dramen of Liszt and the symphonic poems and the elaborate programme music of modern composers such as Richard Strauss (Vol. 25, p. 1003); and though Brahms (Vol. 4, p. 389) showed clearly enough that the classical sonata form was a framework sufficiently elastic to hold the most elaborate and modern ideas, the direction in which music has tended is towards the Symphonic Poem in which, by such devices as the transformation of themes and the Leitmotif (Opera, Vol. 20, p. 125) a still greater elasticity is sought in form with a greater continuity of idea in substance. See Programme Music (Vol. 22, p. 424).
Opera
Supplementing the article Opera (Vol. 20, p. 121) are several which should be consulted. Aria (Vol. 2, p. 489), Overture (Vol. 20, p. 384), and especially Gluck (Vol. 12, p. 139), Mozart (Vol. 18, p. 951), Weber (Vol. 28, p. 457), and Wagner (Vol. 28, p. 237). These, with the biographical notices of operatic composers, which include almost every Italian composer from the days of Peri (Vol. 21, p. 144), and French composers from Lully (Vol. 17, p. 121), give a mass of information bearing on the development of this popular form.
Song